The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has been pushing Ugandan TV stations to air local content. As part of its key functions UCC, under the Uganda Communications Act 2013 Section 5(1) x, is set standards, monitor and enforce compliance relating to content. In this regard, the Commission set and has been monitoring local content quotas (70%) on Ugandan television broadcasting stations since January 2014. The major objective is to promote national culture, pluralism, diversity, create employment, as well as developing the local film industry. From their findings, out of the 14 TV stations, UBC , NBS, Bukedde and NTV ranked the highest in delivering local content to Ugandans.
According to the National Broadcasting Policy, Local content is defined as “content that recognises the cultural and linguistic diversity of Uganda carrying themes of relevance to the local audience and produced under Ugandan’s creative control”.
It should be noted that :
- Expansion of the monitoring period from the prime time period of 06:00pm to 11:00pm to include the period from 06:00 am to 11:00pm every day.
- Consideration of all genres of local content using a weighted basis.
- The stations monitored include the following: Bukedde 1, Channel 44, Citizen TV, East Africa TV, ITV, LTV, NBS, NTV, Record TV, Star TV, Top TV, UBC, Urban TV and WBS.
| STATION | Q1 | Q2 | AVERAGE PERCENTAGE | POSITIONS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UBC | 0.446 | 0.486 | 0.466 | 1 st |
| NBS | 0.454 | 0.431 | 0.443 | 2 nd |
| Bukedde 1 | 0.421 | 0.443 | 0.432 | 3 rd |
| NTV | 0.409 | 0.403 | 0.406 | 4 th |
| Star TV | 0.38 | 0.424 | 0.402 | 5 th |
| Top TV | 0.41 | 0.351 | 0.381 | 6 th |
| WBS | 0.354 | 0.342 | 0.348 | 7 th |
| Urban TV | 0.25 | 0.302 | 0.276 | 8 th |
| Record TV | 0.262 | 0.26 | 0.261 | 9 th |
| Channel 44 | 0.173 | 0.19 | 0.182 | 10 th |
| LTV | 0.065 | 0.101 | 0.083 | 11 th |
| East Africa TV | 0.023 | 0.015 | 0.019 | 12 th |
| Citizen TV | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 th |
| ITV | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 th |
Table above shows performance and ranking of all TV stations during the 1st & 2nd quarters of 2015
Accordingly, the table above clearly highlights the performance of all monitored television stations offering local TV content to Ugandans using the new methodology indicating their position from the first to the last.
